Dion was having a running race. This race would stretch in six stages over seven days and cover almost 155 miles. Gobi, a little she-dog happened to join him. It was their third day.
The sky was clear, the weather was warm: the ground was firm beneath Gobi’s feet. From time to time, Dion would look over at her and smile. The warmth of that smile was even brighter than the sun beating down on them, but in a good way. It filled Gobi up.
As they progressed, a broad river popped into their sight, lying right in front. Dion had no idea how deep it was, but the race markers led right across, so he had to assume he’d be able to make it across as well.
Taking a deep breath, he took a careful step into the water. It was surprisingly cold considering how warm the day was, and he sank down up to his waist, but that was it. At least the riverbed seemed solid. He could make his way across; he just had to go slowly. One wrong step and he’d get completely wet. Plus, he could hurt himself since he couldn’t see where he was putting his feet. This was going to take a while.
Gobi watched as the man jumped into the water. She wagged her tail, but he didn’t look her way. He was clearly busy concentrating. She sat down just before the water and watched. Surely, he would turn around and notice that she wasn’t with him. But several minutes passed, and he got farther and farther away. Finally, Gobi couldn’t take it any longer. She began anxiously running up and down the riverbank. Was the man going to leave her?
At the sound of her bark, Dion stopped. He always made a point of facing forward, always forward, during a race. But this time he did glance back. Gobi was sitting at the river’s edge, barking fiercely. There was no way the little dog could cross that on her own. These days, he’d fed her, given her water, and named her. He had to admit that he liked having her with him. She lifted his spirits.
注意：1. 续写词数应为150左右；
2. 请按如下格式在答题卡的相应位置作答。
Paragraph 1: Right now, listening to her barking as he left her behind nearly broke his heart.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________Paragraph 2: This became tougher for Dion to cross the broad river.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________2 . Think about what you like to wear on the weekend. There’s a good chance that you like to put on a pair of blue jeans（牛仔裤）. At any moment, about half of the world’s population is wearing jeans. But according to a new study, our love for jeans may be bad for earth. The cloth used to make jeans might be putting some sea animals in danger. Every time we wash our jeans, small bits of it will flow out of our washing machines and into the world’s rivers, lakes and sea.
You might wonder: isn’t the cloth made of something natural? How can it become a danger to nature? Well, when making jeans, the cloth is treated with many types of man-made chemicals. Scientists aren’t yet sure how the chemicals（化学品） in the cloth might harm animals.
In the study, the scientists also washed jeans to see how many bits of the cloth on average each pair would drop per wash. The answer was worrying: about 50,000. Not all of them make their way into the environment. Wastewater treatment plants hold back 83 to 99 percent of them. This may sound pretty good. However, one percent of 50,000 are still 500 per wash. Now think about the number of jeans around the world and the times each of them gets washed. As a result, a large amount of the cloth still gets into the environment.
Does this mean we shouldn’t wear jeans? Probably not. “We need to buy fewer clothes and only wash them when we truly need to do it,” says Sam Athey, one of the scientists. “You don’t need to wash your jeans after having worn them only a few times.”
1. What does the underlined word “it” in paragraph 1 refer to?| A．The danger. | B．The cloth. | C．The earth. | D．The sea animal. |
| A．There is a large amount of wastewater. |
| B．There is more cloth thrown by people. |
| C．There is too much rubbish created by the cloth. |
| D．There are lots of chemicals which are harmful to animals. |
| A．we should not wear jeans | B．we should not buy clothes |
| C．we should wash the clothes less often | D．we should wash the clothes every day |
| A．History and Culture. | B．Sports and Health. |
| C．Science and Technology. | D．Environment and Life. |
3 . Vast lands of America are dominated by corn, nearly 100macres of it, stretching from Ohio to the Dakotas. What once was forest today produces the corn that feeds people, cattle and, when made into ethanol (乙醇), cars.
Now, the nation’s airlines want to power their planes with corn, too. United Airlines signed a deal with a Nebraska ethanol company to buy enough sustainable fuel, to power 50,000 flights a year. The government could decide on its tax incentives (税收激励) for the industry as soon as December. “Mark my words, the next 20 years, corn farmers are going to provide 95% of all the sustainable airline fuel,” President Biden said in July.
The airlines’ ambitious goal would likely require nearly doubling ethanol production, which airlines say, with great expectation, would decrease their greenhouse gas emissions. If they succeed, it could transform America’s Corn Belt, stimulating farmers and ethanol producers, but potentially further damaging one of the nation’s most important resources: groundwater.
Corn requires a lot of water to grow and it can take hundreds of gallons to produce a single gallon of ethanol. But as airlines take the idea of ethanol, the vital groundwater faces serious risks. “We’re on track to massively increase water usage without any real sense of how sensitive our groundwater is,” said Jeffrey Broberg, who is concerned about groundwater in Minnesota, a major corn state.
The Department of Energy said in a statement that “water use is a critical part of the conversation surrounding bio-energy sustainability”. It pointed to a 2022 department study that concluded that the United States could significantly reduce pressure on groundwater by shifting fuel production away from water-intensive crops like corn, instead growing more crops that don’t require irrigation (灌溉), like various types of straw, grasses and trees. Hopefully, a better approach will be soon studied and adopted.
1. What can we learn from the first two paragraphs?| A．Farmers will increase 95% of their ethanol production. |
| B．The sustainable fuel will not be popular in the future. |
| C．Corn will be an influential source in the fuel industry. |
| D．The government stops the new fuel for the groundwater. |
| A．Preventing. | B．Motivating. | C．Destroying. | D．Impressing. |
| A．The shortage of corn production. |
| B．The increase in global warming. |
| C．A rise in clean-energy tax credits. |
| D．Higher stress on the groundwater. |
| A．Expand the corn planting area. |
| B．Use some alternative materials. |
| C．Cut down the daily water usage. |
| D．Turn to the government for help. |
4 . Overuse of land and warming temperatures are putting insect diversity in danger in some parts of the world, scientists reported Wednesday.
The study, published in the journal Nature, confirmed for the first time a clear and alarming link between warming temperatures and large-scale agriculture and showed that where there are more farmlands, there is a greater decrease in insects.
“These findings lead to huge concerns,” said Charlotte Outhwaite, the lead author of the study and researcher at the University College London, adding that losing insects could threaten human health and food supply.
“Three quarters of our crops depend on insect pollinators(授粉),” Dave Goulson, a professor of biology at the University of Sussex in the UK, previously told CNN. “Without insects, crops will die. We won’t have things like strawberries. We can’t feed 8 billion people.”
Outhwaite said their findings “may only show the tip of the iceberg(冰山一角),"because of the limited amount of evidence in some areas. “But I think there are also a lot of results that we probably don’t really know because there are so many different kinds of insects.” Outhwaite told CNN.
Scientists say, overuse of land has a link with warming temperatures. Destroying natural habitats for agriculture can make the temperature rise sharply. Researchers found great decreases in insect populations in areas of the world that are much warmer. They concluded that in areas with small-scale agriculture, less temperature warming, and more natural habitats, insects only dropped by 7%, compared to the 63% decrease in areas with large-scale agriculture, more temperature warming and less natural habitats. So what can we do to help prevent this?
1. What did the study find?| A．More farmlands lead to a greater decrease in insects. |
| B．Three quarters of our crops depend on insect pollinators. |
| C．Overuse of land is threatening insect diversity all over the world. |
| D．There is little link between warming temperatures and large-scale agriculture. |
| A．To suggest solutions to people’s concerns. | B．To explain the process of insect pollinators. |
| C．To prove the importance of insects to humans. | D．To provide evidence for the decrease in insects. |
| A．Insect pollinators | B．Overuse of land |
| C．Warming temperatures | D．Less natural habitats |
| A．His opinions of the study. | B．Studies of natural habitat. |
| C．The ways to stop the decrease. | D．The causes of warming temperatures. |
5 . A team of scientists is studying the sound of the forest in Ecuador to learn how artificial intelligence (AI) could follow animal life in recovering environments.
When scientists want to measure new forest growth, they can study large areas of land with tools like satellites. But understanding how fast and in what number wildlife is returning to an area is more difficult. Sometimes it requires an expert to listen through sound recordings and pick out animal calls.
Jorg Muller, an expert on birds, wondered if there was a different way. So, he turned to bioacoustics (生物声学), which uses sound to learn more about animal life and their living environments. Muller and his team recorded wildlife sounds in Ecuador. They first had experts listen to the recordings and list the sounds of different animals. Then, they examined the sound quality to measure the environment. Finally, they ran two weeks of recordings through an AI computer program trained to understand 75 different bird calls.
The program was able to pick out the calls on which it was trained. However, scientists wondered if the program could correctly identify the number of different kinds of plants and animals in each environment. To see if the program could do that, the team used two different controls. One was from the experts who listened to the recordings, and the second was based on examples from each environment, which can be used to understand biodiversity (生物多样性).
Since the number of sounds that are found to be used to train is limited, the AI program could only identify one-fourth of the bird calls experts could. But it was still able to correctly measure biodiversity levels in each environment, the study said. It also said the results show the AI program is a powerful tool to measure the recovery of animal societies in some forests. The study showed that biodiversity found from recordings can be measured in a cost-effective and complete way and measure environments.
There are still areas for improvement, including the lack of animal sounds on which to train AI models. And the method can only catch animals that use sound to communicate.
1. What does the study focus on?| A．Studying plant growth. | B．Observing birds’ behavior. |
| C．Understanding AI’s effect on wildlife. | D．Measuring wildlife recovery. |
| A．Bioacoustics. | B．Satellite recording. |
| C．Sound recording by AI. | D．Direct observation by experts. |
| A．Identifying plant species. | B．Tracking weather change. |
| C．Measuring biodiversity levels. | D．Identifying all the bird calls. |
| A．Measuring more bird environments. |
| B．Catching animals that use sound to communicate. |
| C．Training the program on a wider variety of sounds. |
| D．Having experts study more and understand bird calls. |
6 . The Chinese people have developed the habit of ordering more dishes than they can eat when inviting guests for dinner in a restaurant, because if all the plates are empty at the end of the dinner, it would be considered a matter of shame to the host. Surveys show that as much as 35 million tons of food is wasted in China every year.
To solve this problem, the “Clean Your Plate” campaign was launched in 2013 and got a positive response from restaurant owners, the public, and governments at different levels. More and more waiters are now reminding diners to stop ordering more if they have ordered enough to make them full. Also, most restaurant owners nowadays provide free boxes with which the diners can carry the leftovers (剩菜) home.
The “Clean Your Plate” campaign has become popular along with the “save water” and “go green” activities. However, since it takes generations for people to change their bad habits, it’s too early to celebrate its success. Instead, more attention should be paid to preventing food waste at home.
Almost every Chinese family has a “waste bin”. Unfortunately, I happen to be the “waste bin” of my family. I used to enjoy eating leftovers until I heard an expert on TV saying that it causes cancer. Many doctors say the same thing. But later, I saw other experts doing experiments and concluding that food cooked hours ago or even a day ago shows no obvious increase in carcinogenic particles(致癌颗粒) if stored properly. Their disagreement has left me confused. I have no idea who is right, but I am clear that if all the leftovers are thrown away as suggested by some experts, it would be a big waste of food.
1. Why was the “Clean Your Plate” campaign launched?| A．To invite guests for dinner. | B．To save people’s face. |
| C．To reduce food waste. | D．To stop unbalanced diet. |
| A．Waiters are reminded to stop ordering more. |
| B．Free boxes are provided by most restaurant owners. |
| C．People are eager to change their bad habits earlier. |
| D．People pay more attention to preventing food waste at home. |
| A．Eating leftovers causes cancer. |
| B．Leftovers should be thrown into the waste bin. |
| C．Throwing all the leftovers would be a big waste of food. |
| D．Properly stored leftovers won’t cause damage to health. |
| A．An introduction to a campaign. | B．The ways to deal with leftovers. |
| C．An explanation of food waste. | D．The eating habits of Chinese. |
7 . Flooding was fairly usual for a Queensland summer. This time, however, there had been a lot of rain and flash flooding further north which
My younger brother was getting
Finally, we decided to
The
| A．fast | B．slowly | C．actually | D．eventually |
| A．excited | B．nervous | C．curious | D．disappointed |
| A．turn | B．lay | C．calm | D．break |
| A．hours | B．degree | C．meters | D．days |
| A．level | B．ground | C．speed | D．house |
| A．made | B．sold | C．covered | D．moved |
| A．swim | B．separate | C．leave | D．stay |
| A．reaching | B．flooding | C．entering | D．destroying |
| A．weekend | B．money | C．holiday | D．night |
| A．fallen | B．run | C．risen | D．washed |
| A．funniest | B．scariest | C．strangest | D．greatest |
| A．lies | B．operates | C．keeps | D．spreads |
| A．height | B．length | C．depth | D．width. |
| A．stood by | B．waved at | C．looked through | D．walked across |
| A．flood | B．building | C．view | D．sport |
8 . The big French pet care company AgroBiothers Laboratoire will no longer sell very small containers for raising fish.
The company has a 27 percent share of the French market for products used by people who raise animals at home. But it said it would no longer sell any fishbowls that hold less than 15 liters of water. They will only offer four-sided ones.
The company said it was animal abuse (虐待) to put fish in small bowls without added oxygen and filtration. Filtration is the process of removing small waste from the water with a device.
AgroBiothers chief Matthieu Lambeaux recently used the term “impulse”—meaning a sudden strong desire to do something—to describe why many adults buy goldfish. “People buy a goldfish for their kids on impulse, but if they knew what torture it is, they would not do it. Turning round and round in a small bowl drives fish crazy and kills them quickly,” Lambeaux added.
Goldfish can live up to 30 years and grow to about 25 cm in large aquariums (养鱼缸) or outdoor ponds. But in very small bowls they often die within weeks or months. Lambeaux said goldfish are social animals that need other fish, lots of space and clean water. He added that having an aquarium requires some special equipment and knowledge.
Germany and several other European countries have long banned (禁止) fishbowls, but France has no laws on the problem.
Lambeaux explained the company’s decision further by saying, “We cannot educate all our customers by explaining that keeping fish in a bowl is terrible. We consider that it is our responsibility to no longer give customers that choice.”
“There is demand for fishbowls,” he said, “but the reality is that what we offer children is the possibility of seeing goldfish die slowly.”
1. What makes the French company stop selling certain fishbowls?| A．Their size. | B．Their price. |
| C．Their weight. | D．Their popularity. |
| A．Progress. | B．Pleasure. |
| C．Difficulty. | D．Suffering. |
| A．The age goldfish can reach. | B．Costs of keeping goldfish. |
| C．Proper living conditions for goldfish. | D．The advice on how to choose fishbowls. |
| A．Raise the price of the fishbowls. | B．Remove the chances of harming goldfish. |
| C．Keep goldfish outside in the wild. | D．Educate parents to care for goldfish. |
9 . As AI becomes popular, researchers have noticed its influence on the environment. Training an AI system requires huge computing power and electricity, and the resulting CO2 emissions (排放) are one way AI affects the environment. But its environmental effect is more than its carbon (碳)footprint.
Jesse Dodge, a scientist at the Allen Institute, says, "The influence of Al systems is going to be from their applications, not the cost of training them." David Rolnick, a computer scientist at McGill University, compares AI to a hammer (锤子) “The main effect of a hammer is what is being hammered,” he says, "not what is in the hammer." Just like a hammer which can either destroy things or build a house, Al can hurt or help the environment.
In 2019, ExxonMobil, an oil company, said it would use Microsoft’s app Azure. With the Al technology, it would increase its production and create billions of dollars. This means Microsoft's AI is directly contributing to greenhouse gas emissions. This is not the only AI application that could be environmentally harmful. AI behind the ads that jump out on Instagram or Facebook pages pushes customers to spend more on products like clothes. This in turn causes more emissions through more production and delivery.
But on the other side of the coin, there are AI applications that can help deal with environmental problems, such as the destruction caused by hurricanes. One such application is xView2, a program started by a U. S. organization. It can recognize buildings damaged and people trapped in natural disasters, reducing danger and saving time for rescuers.
AI could be a valuable tool in the fight against climate change—if the Al industry can reduce its harmful climate effects. "Both AI and climate rules have roles to play." Rolnick says. When creating Al rules, he suggests considering its applications, emissions, and other production costs. Further, Dodge adds that those AI professionals should help set up some value systems to limit the technology's use.
1. Where does the effect of AI systems on the environment come from according to Dodge?| A．The popularity of AI. | B．The emissions of CO2. |
| C．The way of applying AI. | D．The cost of AI training. |
| A．By listing numbers. | B．By giving examples. |
| C．By comparing facts. | D．By explaining details. |
| A．Rules for AI can be helpful. | B．Al's advance should be limited. |
| C．Production costs will be lower. | D．AI plays a role in making rules. |
| A．AI applications are environmentally harmful. |
| B．AI affects the environment by CO2 emissions. |
| C．AI is effective in solving environmental problems. |
| D．AI's environmental effect goes beyond its emissions. |
I have a passion for fishing and animal protection, which can date back to my childhood. When I was young, my father was a fish and wildlife officer, so he traveled all over the province in the spring and fall. He loved his job, especially the part where he protected nature from human.
He’d taught me to fish alone, in silence, lost in my own thoughts.
I still remembered that special day. Midweek, even in late August, no one was around. Police Outpost Lake is as far as you can go and still be in Canada. Songbirds, ducks, and Canada geese glided (滑翔) by on the breeze, touching down briefly on the water’s surface before flapping and quacking their way back up into the sky, passing in front of the sun, temporarily blocking its warming rays.
“How can I get the fish with these birds making noise?” I complained, rod (鱼竿) in my hand.
“Be patient, Jacob. Birds won’t disturb you.”
Out of the corner of my eyes, I suddenly caught a glimpse of a few great northern loons (潜鸟) stayed together not far from the shoreline. Dad once told me loon usually travel alone, but here were five of them in a group. Maybe it was a family? One loon, making odd sounds, swam away from the group, towards me.
This is unusual.
“Dad! Come here! Take a look at this loon!”
Hearing this, dad laid his rod down on the dirty sand, walking quickly towards me.
The loon rested in the shallow water near shore, not ten feet away from us. It was so close, we could see its red eyes.
“Look at that beak (喙)!”I said. “It could easily hurt us to death with that thing! It could tear our faces! Blind our eyes!”
Walking into the water, getting closer to the loon, we both saw thin wire wrapped around its neck. Fishing line maybe? Was there a hook(钩子)on the line, too? Was the loon asking us for help?
注意：1.续写词数应为150左右;
2.请按如下格式在答题卡的相应位置作答。
Paragraph 1: Reaching down, I touched its feather, my heart racing.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Paragraph 2: “Hurry, Dad! I can’t hold this bird forever, you know!” I said.
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